"If it's a penny for your thoughts, and you put your two cents in, someone's making a penny." -- Steven Wright

Thursday, February 26, 2009

He's No Partisan, Bah

I don't pretend to know much about how judges are supposed to interpret the law, or not. It's always seemed to me that the job of a judge was to hand down common sense decisions based on legal precedent. If that is not the case, then what's the point of keeping records of decisions?

Anyway, I have been only somewhat interested in the Wisconsin Supreme Court campaign between Supreme Court Justice Shirley Abrahamson and Judge Randy Koschnik. I probably should be more interested, but of late the bantering back and forth has been boring and I have three kids to raise. Still, from the little I've read I see no reason not to vote for Abrahamson. Sure, I come from a more liberal background and would likely have voted for Abrahamson if I'd read or heard nothing at all up to the moment of voting itself, but I'm willing to take a look and I have. Randy Koschnik (“I'm not a partisan”) is an extremely partisan conservative. His beliefs about free society do not match mine.

Now more so than ever. I came into possession of a letter ostensibly written by William “Butch” Johnson. Mr. Johnson is CEO of Johnson Timber out of Hayward, Wisconsin. From the content of the letter it's fair to say he's a rabid /Republican/conservative. Lot's of them out there in the deep woods, apparently. Nothing new. What's troubling is the letter is authorized and paid for by Koschnik for Justice. In the letter, Johnson is asking for $100,000 real quick; like in the next ten days (the letter was date Feb. 11, 2009 – who knows if they reached that goal). As the Illusory Tenant points out, nothing like scaring open the pocketbooks.

Knowing that Judge Koschnik had pledged to run a clean campaign (he could begin by shaving off that hideous beard) I was curious to see if the rhetoric in the letter matched his promises.

Small businesses struggle while violent criminals walk free ...

Whoa, that's quite a dichotomy. That sentence makes it sound as though Justice Abrahamson is to blame for violent criminals ravaging small business in Wisconsin. Since the letter is preaching to the choir, who cares about facts backing the nonsense.

The quiet menace of tyranny lurks in the shadows as liberal judges seize power from the people's legislature. In all of this, one common thread emerges …

Quiet menace of tyranny? Liberal judges seizing power? Those be fighting words and hardly representative of running a “clean” campaign. I wonder if Peter DiGaudio is writing for the Koschnik campaign.

As a conservative and a leader in tbe Republican Party, I believe that three equal branches of government are necessary to maintaining a functioning government capable of defending individual rights and maintaining an even hand of justice.

Well, if that were true, Johnson would be voting for Justice Abrahamson, because the Supreme Court already tilts to the conservative side of the ledger; bought and paid for by Republican extremism. This is not about defending individual rights, it's about stacking the deck so right-wing business owners in Wisconsin like Mr. Johnson are provided a free hand.

On the other hand. Shirley Abrahamson has lost sight of these crucial principles. Instead. she is leading our entire legal system down a destructive path toward her revolutionary dream of a Supreme Court with unchecked power to re-create society in its own image.

Whose image? If the efforts to seat Annette Ziegler and Michael Gableman are any indication, it's conservatives who are being revolutionary and un-democratic in their attempt to re-create the Supreme Court in their own narrow-minded image.

Shirley Abrahamson is one of the leading liberal activist justices in the entire country. Her decisions have eroded the Rule of Law, undermined our economy, jeopardized the safety of families and breached the principles of our republican form of government. Your generous gift will help Judge Koschnick defeat the leading liberal scion of judicial abuse. I hope you'll respond in the next 10 days. Thanks again!

It's rhetoric like this that dominated the eight years of the Bush administration and contributed mightily to the 2006 election results and the smashing victory for decency and American values in the 2008 election. Apparently these thugs have not learned their lesson.